


Arranged

by unwindmyself



Series: curious shapes shift in the dark [83]
Category: True Blood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dress Up, F/F, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, Vampire Politics, agency and choices!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3904567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The other women of the house work to prepare Jessica for her coronation, in their ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arranged

**Author's Note:**

> Part one, "Love You More."

“I don’t see why we couldn’t’ve waited another few nights at least,” Jessica complains, reaching for the bottle of A- on the dressing table.

Which makes Pam promptly slap her arm.  “Sit still or I’m gonna wind up burning you,” she snaps, brandishing the curling iron for dramatic effect.

“It wouldn’t make any difference, it’d heal up,” Jessica retorts, sticking her tongue out.  But she doesn’t really relish even the brief flash of pain, so she sits back in the chair and folds her arms over her chest.

“Aren’t you gettin’ too old to be a brat?” Pam asks.

“Aren’t you?” Jessica replies coolly.

“I leave you two alone for two minutes and you’re already goin’ at each other’s throats,” Tara sighs, letting herself in.  Pam has turned one of the spare bedrooms in this house into a proper dressing room, a room-sized closet more like, with a lighted mirror over the dressing table (counter) and plenty of shelves (Eric and Tara and surprisingly Willa installed most of them, under Pam’s direction), and that’s where they’re now sequestered.  

“She started it,” Jessica and Pam say in unison.

Tara rolls her eyes.  “Y’all act like a couple of sixth graders,” she says, popping up onto the counter and stealing a sip from the bottle.

“You’re not dressed yet,” Pam observes, because Tara is all bare legs and strapless bra.

“I’m not in a hurry,” Tara says.  “We’ve got like two hours till guests show up.”

“Yeah, and it’s gonna take at least half an hour for me to get your hair done,” Pam returns.  She herself was up an hour before sunset to get her own self ready before she had to tend to everyone else, because like hell she’s letting the new Queen of Louisiana and her court go out looking like extras from a prom scene on _Glee_.  “So you’d probably best get a move on and slip into that slinky dress you picked out.”

“I still don’t know what the point even is, gettin’ all done up like we’re goin’ to some lame-ass award show,” Tara shrugs.  “I mean, all we’re doin’ is havin’ people watch you say you’ll be the queen, which is something you’ve already kinda done. Did asshole have a coronation?”

“Not one that I ever went to,” Jessica shrugs.

“From what I can deduce, Bill’s reign was a questionable coup to begin with,” Nora says as she enters and promptly flops on the chaise lounge in the middle of the room.  “Typically a royal swearing-in would involve a bit more fanfare -”

“Told you,” Pam says smugly.

“Though usually not nearly this much ceremony,” Nora continues.  “I found some of Nan’s journaling on the server when I was cleaning out files, and she seems to have conspired with your Maker to end Sophie-Anne’s life, in order to put him on the throne on the premise that he was more mainstreaming-friendly.”

Tara laughs out loud.

“It seems that his excuse about protecting Sookie was at least in part just that, an excuse,” Nora continues.  “But given that guards under Nan’s supervision were responsible for executing Sophie-Anne in the first place, she was on the scene to swear him in almost immediately after the blood hit the floor.  We didn’t get any notification of the situation until it had all been dealt with.  Unconventional and a bit shady, really, but we had other things to concern ourselves with at the time.”

“‘Course you did,” Pam rolls her eyes.

“My point is, the level of formality is dependent on the situation,” Nora says.  One of her arms and one of her legs are hanging off the side of the chaise lounge, very dramatically.  “I don’t think it’s entirely out of line for this particular occasion to slant formally, as it’s sort of doubling as the new Authority’s coming out party.”

“Still, I wish we could’ve waited till Jason was… up to comin’,” Jessica mumbles.

“Oh, that’s what it’s about,” Pam says, not even bothering to hide the way she’s watching Nora for reactions.  (So far, disappointingly nonexistent.)

“Yeah,” Jessica says with a careful shrug.  “He’s a part of this same as any of us, isn’t he?”

“And it makes sense, you wantin’ him here, since he and you used to…”

“We used to be good friends, yeah,” Jessica supplies.  “I haven’t had that many of those, and this is kind of a big deal, so it’d be nice to have him here.  That’s all.”

Pam looks like she’s thinking about pressing the matter, but Tara silences her with a glare, then changes the subject, asking Nora, “Who all is comin’ to this soiree?”

“Well, Sookie is a conditional, for the reasons we’ve been discussing,” Nora says casually, beginning to tick them off on her hands.  “The fairy girls and their family -”

“Andy is really gonna be at a vampire coronation?” Tara interrupts, sounding incredulous.  “ _Arlene_ is gonna be at a vampire coronation?”

“Andy is in human law enforcement, it seemed prudent,” Jessica defends.

_“Prudent?”_ Pam repeats, even more incredulous.  Apparently Jessica has been sharing Nora’s vocabulary as well as her bed.

“And it woulda been mean to not invite Arlene and Terry and Holly,” Jessica continues sheepishly.

“The rest of the Bon Temps crowd,” Nora continues.  “Really any of our friends that were at the last failed attempt at a celebration.  A couple of the monarchs nearby - Georgia’s queen, Missouri’s king - and those members of their court that they saw fit to bring.  Representatives from the Yakanomo Corporation.”

“Whose factories y’all blew up?” Pam clarifies.

“Yes,” Nora says, trying not to sound too aggravated.  “I’m hoping to rebuild that relationship, though we’ll have to do from the ground up.”

“You don’t have to tell them you were one of the assholes who decided to blow their shit up,” Pam provides helpfully.  “Half-truths, right?”

“Thank you for the rousing vote of confidence,” Nora rolls her eyes.  “We’re also going to be entertaining the head of the local werewolf pack, Rikki, and her second Danielle.”

“Interspecies cooperation,” Jessica provides, smiling.  

“And with that, I’m going to go check on something downstairs,” Nora says, disappearing out the door before she has to lie about what.

 

* * *

  
As expected, Willa is sprawled on her bed texting when Nora enters.  She’s got hot rollers pinned in her hair, separators between her toes and pink paint drying on their nails, and, like her aunt, is currently wearing nothing but elaborate lingerie and a flimsy attempt at a dressing gown.

“What’s up?” she asks.

“I need you to help me with something,” Nora says.  “Do you know Sookie’s Skype handle?”


End file.
